


Sleepless Nights and the Taste of Cigarette Smoke

by mizdiz



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Minor Violence, PWP without Porn, cigarette kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:07:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizdiz/pseuds/mizdiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A particularly gruesome murder gives John a case of insomnia. He happens upon his flatmate, who is smoking and deducing (and looking attractive doing so). Porn ensues. Pretty much PWP. Cigarette kink. Written in American English.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless Nights and the Taste of Cigarette Smoke

John Watson can’t sleep. There’s a young woman with a sliced jugular vein lying on a cold, metal slab in a dreary room at Bart’s, and it seems improper to sleep with her killer still at large. Strange, that, given his history. As a solider, John was trained how to sleep anywhere, anytime he got the opportunity, no matter what bombs were going off outside. He was used to the mutilated bodies piled up, like the army hospital was more like a morgue. With the insides of young men torn up like a meatball mess, John still could fall into a dreamless sleep. 

But not tonight. 

Tonight, the congealed blood on the paling neck of the post-mortem woman haunts the back of his mind. He tries to envision the blade that cut it—tries to see the hand that maneuvered the weapon. He runs through Sherlock’s deductions.

‘Look at the angle, the neck was cut from behind. She didn’t see her killer’s face.’ 

‘There are no hesitation cuts, and the killer knew just what vein to hit. He’s done his homework—maybe even done this before.’ 

‘She’s young, early twenties, lower class, and newly engaged…Look at her ring finger. The stone is nearly microscopic; her fiancé couldn’t afford anything better. And see how easily it slides off? It’s loose, she hasn’t gotten it fit properly—hasn’t had the time, probably, because the proposal was recent.’

John hates these kinds of deaths. Of course he knows he should hate all kinds of deaths, and he does. But there’s a part of him that gets satisfaction from particularly interesting crimes, or men who get their just desserts. He is a thrill seeker, after all.

But this is cold blooded, and it’s unsettling his stomach. A young woman with a future displayed on her finger, and he can’t imagine why someone would want to end that. John kicks at his blankets, flops uselessly over on his back, and tries to will sleep to him, but can’t. Logically, he knows he’s mad to not take advantage of this rest time. Tomorrow will be filled with wild chases through the London streets, and piles of paperwork after they undoubtedly catch the killer—he should capitalize on these few hours Sherlock is granting him. But still, the sleep won’t come.

He gives up. Throwing his legs over the side of his bed, he pads out of his room with the intent of fixing himself a cup of tea. He tiptoes down the stairs and silently enters the sitting room. He stops. Doesn’t move. He feels he’s interrupted something.

Sherlock Holmes can’t sleep either.

This is less surprising. Sherlock hardly sleeps on the job. He normally spends his working nights playing Bach to will his thoughts into order. Sometimes he lays on this back with his hands templed beneath his chin, nicotine patches placed along the length of his forearm. 

But he’s not doing either tonight.

Tonight he’s standing at the window, a lit cigarette between his fingers. Maybe he’s out of patches, John reasons, or maybe this case is too much for anything but the real thing. Whatever the reason, the sight takes John’s breath away, as though it were his own lungs clouded with smoke. 

John’s seen Sherlock beaten to a pulp. He’s seen him angry, and upset, and sad. He’s seen him drugged out of his mind on morphine that time he got the compound fracture in his arm. Hell, he’s even seen the scars in the crook of Sherlock’s left elbow where the needles used to go. 

But John has never seen Sherlock smoke.

And for whatever reason, it’s captivating. 

Sherlock has either not noticed John’s presence, or is ignoring it. Either is equally possible. He puts the cigarette to his lips. His cheeks hollow, emphasizing the sharp bones in his face, as he inhales. The cherry on the cigarette burns a bright orange—the color of fire. Sherlock removes the cigarette, and through puckered lips, exhales out the open window. There is a pregnant pause between drags. John doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath, until Sherlock brings his hand back to his mouth, and the two of them inhale together.

This time he exhales through his nose. The smoke streams out of his nostrils like an angry dragon. His gaze is fierce, but unfocused, looking out on the street below. There’s the sound of distant traffic and voices. The city is awake even at this hour. Sherlock observes it quietly, as his arm falls back down to his side. Absently, he ashes the cigarette, and the tip falls off onto the floor. 

John is attracted to Sherlock. This information isn’t new to either of them. John knew there was something there the first time he heard, “Could be dangerous.” Sherlock, of course, has observed this in his friend. The occasional flush of the face, or the quickened heart rate when Sherlock grabs him and drags him off to this-or-that. And while the feelings are not necessarily unrequited, neither man has previously had any intention of acting on them.

But this moment has John wondering if maybe that should be rectified. Because neither man can sleep, and there’s a woman lying dead with a gaping neck wound, and who knows where that will leave them tomorrow. Maybe the next victim of the killer’s blade will be Sherlock. Maybe John. Who knows who could creep up from behind?

Besides, there is the undeniable fact that Sherlock smoking has John hard as a rock. John’s called Sherlock a lot of things, but sexy hasn’t been one of them. But right now, that’s the only word that makes sense. 

This time, as his friend takes a long drag off the cigarette, John walks closer to him. He’s not quite sure what will happen when he gets there—he hasn’t thought that far—but he knows that right now he is much too far away.

He is nearly side-by-side with Sherlock. For anybody else, it would be impossible for them not to notice being watched, but it’s entirely possible that Sherlock is so lost in his own world that he doesn’t know John is there. So that’s why John jumps a little, startled, when Sherlock says,

“We’re out of patches.” 

John grins at the word ‘we’re,’ as though it’s something they share. Sherlock’s affection for John isn’t obvious, but it can be found in the simple things—like how his vocabulary is geared toward an idea of an ‘us.’ 

“You’re going to stink up the whole flat,” John mutters back, but it’s half-hearted, really, just because that’s how this game works. John pretends to be annoyed at Sherlock’s antics, and Sherlock pretends to be annoyed at John’s annoyance. It’s boyish, grade-school play, but they enjoy it. 

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Sherlock asks, still gazing out of the window. The question sounds disingenuous, as though his mind is elsewhere. It probably is.

“Couldn’t,” John says simply. “Not with the case wide open like this. I guess that’s what it’s like to be you, huh?”

“Mm,” Sherlock grunts, not paying attention. He sucks down another puff off of the cigarette. It’s nearly to the filter, and surely burns his lips and tongue. John has smoked a time or two (never often, and always socially), and his favorite part was always the last little bit, where the tobacco starts to taste gritty, and you play to see how long you can puff before it burns too hot. 

Sherlock puts out his cigarette on the wall, leaving a smudge of burnt ash behind. This should probably frustrate John, but instead he smiles. No one but Sherlock Holmes could be so brilliant and yet so lazy at the same time. There is a comfortable silence between them.

“You should go to sleep,” Sherlock says, breaking it, as he starts to turn from the window. What John does next is instinctive, and he’s not entirely sure what he’s trying to accomplish. As Sherlock begins to move away, John reaches out and takes his flatmate by the wrist. Sherlock stops in his tracks, startled by the sudden physical contact.

John loosens his grip and Sherlock takes his arm away. Sherlock is looking him straight in the eye, and John feels small under the scrutiny. He’s certain Sherlock can read him like a book. Pupils dilating, cheeks reddening, breath quickening—all of these signals like words on a page. And yet Sherlock doesn’t move away. 

Instead he takes a step forward, and John does a sharp intake of breath. They are close enough now that John can feel Sherlock’s body heat radiating off of him. Their height difference is exaggerated as Sherlock peers down at him through narrowed eyes. John’s mouth goes dry.

“I don’t like distractions when I’m working,” Sherlock says, and it’s a whisper.

“Sorry,” is all John can think to say back. “Sorry, I should try to go to sleep anyway.” He tries to move away, but Sherlock grabs his wrist in the same place John had a hold of him a moment ago. Sherlock leans in to whisper into John’s ear, and John can feel his hot breath on his neck as he says,

“It’s too late, you’ve already distracted me. Now I’ve got to find a way to clear my mind.”

What happens next is, retrospectively, inevitable. Really, they had been leading up to this moment for the entirety of their time together. Why it should happen at 2am with a murder case on each of their brains, well, it’s anyone’s guess.

Sherlock angles himself down until his lips come into contact with John’s. Sherlock presses hard, demands entrance into John’s mouth immediately, never one to do anything gently. John obliges, opening his mouth and allowing his tongue to lick and explore Sherlock’s. Sherlock tastes like cigarettes. His breath smells of smoke. It goes straight to John’s cock.

Sherlock slips his hands under John’s shirt, and scratches lightly at the skin on his back. In response, John bucks his hips up and grabs onto Sherlock’s waist and pulls him impossibly close. He runs his hands up the chest of the consulting detective, enjoying the silk of his button down shirt. Sherlock moves his kiss from John’s mouth to along his jaw line, to his neck. 

Sherlock nips at exposed flesh, while John untucks Sherlock’s shirt from his dress pants. He begins to unbutton it expertly with his teeth. Sherlock pulls back slightly to give John a bemused look. John just smirks in response. He didn’t gain the nickname John-Three-Continents-Watson by lying on his back and letting everyone else do the work, after all. 

John undoes the first three buttons on his flatmate’s shirt, and begins to bite and suck on the skin on his chest. Sherlock doesn’t look it, but he’s very well toned. He’s got a lean layer of muscle covering all of his bones. His pectoral muscles contract and tighten under John’s touch. Sherlock’s chest swells as he inhales deeply and bites back a groan.

Sherlock takes hold of the bottom of John’s pajama shirt, and momentarily severs their contact as he tugs it up over John’s head. John takes that opportunity to unfasten the rest of the buttons on Sherlock’s shirt, and push it off his shoulders. Shirtless, the two men revel in the new places to touch—the prick of teeth on a collarbone—the pleasant aches of an errant graze across a taut nipple—the room soundless, say for the sound of the two men’s breath, and the bustle of the nighttime city below.

Then Sherlock’s hands find John’s waistline—slip under the fabric of his pajama pants—and the mood of the room takes a sharp turn. John feels his internal temperature rising. He bucks up against Sherlock, and meets his flatmate’s own erection in the process. Both men let out involuntary gasps.

“Sherlock, wha-” John starts, as Sherlock slides down to his knees. “What are you doing?” he manages to say. Sherlock looks up at him with a look that clearly says, ‘obvious.’

Sherlock pulls down John’s pants, until they fall in a heap at his ankles. John doesn’t wear underwear to bed. His cock juts from his body, totally exposed. He can feel Sherlock’s breath on the sensitive skin. He steps until his backside is pressed up against the window. If anyone from the street cared to look up, they’d see John mooning the whole of Baker Street. But as Sherlock takes John’s cock fully into his mouth, John couldn’t care less about the people of London, and whether or not they are watching.

John uses one hand to steady himself against the window, tangles the other in Sherlock’s curls, and marvels at the way Sherlock can be in a completely submissive position, with John fucking his mouth, and still give off an air of superiority, like he’s still the higher command. 

John gives off a moan that may be Sherlock’s name or may just be nonsense. Sherlock grabs firmly onto the base of John’s cock as he licks pre-cum off the tip. John tastes like sweaty, salty flesh. His cock jerks involuntarily, and he pulls Sherlock’s hair. 

The fly of Sherlock’s pants is undone and pushed out of the way, and it takes John a minute to be cognizant of the fact that Sherlock is not only jerking him off, but is also masturbating with his free hand. Not so much the virgin after all.

Sherlock takes John all the way into the back of his throat, and comes back up with an obscene slurping sound. He sucks on John, swirls his tongue up and down the shaft, and moves his hand on himself rhythmically. John is lost, his bare back pressed hard against the window as heat wells up in his groin. He whimpers—tries not to, but can’t help it. The pull on Sherlock’s hair is surely painful, but neither man is giving it any notice. As they both near climax, Sherlock begins to lose rhythm. His every action takes on a new sense of urgency, and he practically growls with his mouth sucking hard on John’s cock. 

Sherlock cums first. Hot semen spills onto his hand, and he has to use every ounce of concentration to not pull away from John. It’s short-lived, however, as John is close behind, cumming hard into Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock patiently waits it out, swallows, and pulls away slowly. There’s a moment between them while they catch their breath.

Then Sherlock stands, wipes his hand on his pants (grimacing while he does so), and does his fly. The moment is over. John becomes aware of his nudity—realizes his backside is still pressed against the window, and the cool night air filtering in from the open crack resonates on his skin. The full extent of his actions this night hit him like train. He pulls his pants back up, grabs his shirt off the ground, and chances a glance at his flatmate. 

Sherlock is looking at John with a calm expression. There’s no hint of regret, and it comforts John. He’s suddenly aware of how exhausted he is. He can’t help his yawn, and Sherlock smirks. 

“Go to bed, John,” he says, picking up his pack of cigarettes off the side table, and placing one in his mouth. Sherlock leans against the window, looks back out at the city below, and lights his cigarette, his mind already back on the woman with the neck wound. 

John watches Sherlock smoke for just a minute—he’s shirtless, and beautiful, and the genius that he is—and John wonders absently how the two of them will be tomorrow—if it’ll be awkward, or just natural. He decides he’ll worry about it when it’s light out. He turns away, goes up the stairs, forgetting the tea he originally came down for, and crawls back into bed.

It takes him no more than five minutes to fall fast asleep, mind clear of everything but the cherry of Sherlock’s cigarette, and the taste of residual cigarette smoke still resting on his lips.


End file.
